My Tesla India experience

On a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon, I decided to walk in to the Tesla India showroom located at Jio World Drive at BKC, Mumbai. It was my first visit btw.

I was quite surprised, that there was not even a single potential customer for enquiries or for a test drive. 

Given that the BKC is a second CBD in city, perhaps it is understandable that the working executives are not around.

The showroom was opened to the public in July 2025 amidst a huge PR exercise. Elon Musk was conspicuously absent for the India launch at the time. 

However, Bloomberg last week reported that Tesla India is sitting on over 50% unsold inventory which have already been brought in to India last year.

Inside the showroom, the staff member, Mr. Zaheer was very keen and forthcoming to showcase the car to me.  He took personal interest to understand my needs and explained it all to me.

He was also kind enough to take me for a spin all the way up to the Sealink toll and we took a U-turn there. 

Pretty nice experience, I must say. Especially being a co-pax., which I chose to be. Just to understand what my family would feel sitting in there. 

The cabin is extremely spacious. 

As Steve Jobs would say, Design is not how it look, rather how it works. Folks at Tesla seem to have got everything right indeed, in terms of the design feature of everything inside the vehicle. 

State taxes seem to be a killer, according to the numbers Zaheer showed me. 

Road Taxes for key states are as below;

• Telangana: INR 14,24,892
• Karnataka: INR 717,989
• Tamil Nadu: INR 7,060

Isn’t it amazing that the that one state charges 200 times of another! Welcome to the crazy Indian taxation system.

So, the on-road price, if I were to take the Tesla Model Y to Chennai, I would have to spend INR 69 Lakhs ++.

The price is jacked up mainly because India imposes 100% import duty on vehicles that are neither made or assembled in the country. This was the main reason for the US-India Tariff wars around the summer of 2025. 

On the other hand, if I were to use the same INR 70 lakhs, I could probably buy not one, but 3 top-end EVs as below;

• Mahindra 9E: INR 31 lakhs (approx)
• Tata Safari EV: INR 31 lakhs (approx)
• MG Comet: INR 10 lakh (approx)
• Total: INR 72 lakhs

Given the “international badging” and the after sales support, many Indian consumers seem to be weary of the situation to invest on a Tesla in India. 

What’s your take on buying a Tesla? 

Would you go for it, especially if you are in Mumbai? And would you rather buy buy 1 EV instead of three? Would be keen to know your views. 

PS: The visit to Tesla showroom coincided with my ongoing year long Leadership Course at Harvard Business School.

20 years in Retailing

We were 42 of us who arrived at Spencers Plaza at Chennai, one of the only few malls in India in 2001. Most of them had come outside of Chennai. We all had one common reason to come together, through all the diverse backgrounds that we had. We were the Retail Management Trainees to join RPG Group for a 3-week induction at the HQ located on the fourth floor of the same building. Imagine a career, where you have to work amongst shops selling grocery, beauty products, food and beverage and all within a full air-conditioned environment. Only that this luxury would be short lived until we moved back to our “regions” – our destinations to write our own destinies, all by ourselves. The day was 4^th June 2001. One of the most memorable days in my professional career. 

I had unofficially joined the retail industry way back in 1997 when I would scoop ice-cream part time at a Baskin Robbins parlour, the first one in Chennai and second in India. Though I was pursuing software languages in the morning at NIIT and a graduation in Commerce in the evening at Ramkrishna Mission’s Vivekananda College in Chennai, retail and consumer business became my first love, instant love, right from the first scoop I sold. For an eternal introvert until then, I never knew I could sell something to someone for a consideration, an expensive one at that, let alone the ability to speak with my chin up. 

To my utter shock, I was posted to Musicworld Kolkata for my 1^st year assignment. For the record, I hadn’t ever crossed Chennai city limits in my entire life, save for an annual vacation once in 3-4 years to Mumbai where my maternal grandparents lived or to my father’s hometown at Kumbakonam, where the entire extended family would congregate once in a while for a religious festival or a wedding. I dreaded travelling 1.5 days by train from Chennai to Calcutta. That it was 2^nd class A/c was a silver lining. After all, I was going to be travelling in a/c for the first time, that far. The only other time was one of the first rides from Delhi to Lucknow when Rajdhani was launched in the late 80s. I wondered what would I do alone, in the train, all day. And then, all alone in an unknown city, unknown people, unknown language and an unknown destiny. I am glad I took that train, much to my own chagrin, lest I won’t be writing this Anniversary article today with a sense of fulfilment and happiness. 

The memories I have etched of the city of joy, is perhaps one of the greenest that I would carry to my ashes. I made some amazing friends in Calcutta, spoke Bengali in a few months, and most importantly learnt the fundamentals of retailing at Park Street. Mr. Sanjiv Goenka was based in town, so we were always alert for he may turn up anytime. Seeing consumers spend hours together to pick up a cassette worth Rs. 27 was truly amazing. With 80% of volume business coming from cassettes, 15% from CDs and 5% from VCDs and Games, the 8,000 sft store would do a monthly turnover of Rs. 65 lakhs. Yes. In 2001. And the business grew 30% more during Pujo period and during Christmas! Amazing days. 

After a year, I moved back to Chennai on “job rotation” model of RPG Group’s HR Policy to join Foodworld, where I was in charge of the first store of the group. It was here, between 2002-04 that I decided that I wish to spend the rest of my life in Retailing, selling something or the other to end users. Extended Family members around me laughed, wondering why would someone study MBA to work in a grocery shop after all. Neighbourhood was worried if I was qualified enough for an arranged marriage. 14 years later, I received my first professional award – “Top 50 Retail Professionals in India” decorated by Asia Retail Congress. And then, three more awards in Retail and F&B in the past 6 years. In between, speaking at 100s of forums on Consumer Business & Retail in India, Singapore, Malaysia and China!

Before and after my first “public recognition”, my work in retail spoke more than what I could imagine to write. Designing and establishing India’s first ever Travel Retail environment across any private airport in India in 2006 at Bangalore; setting up 140 cafes across India for Café Coffee Day; driving and doubling the dealer network of Royal Enfield from 140 to 300 in just 2 years; and growing the topline of Levista Instant Coffee by 79% during the pandemic year 2020-21; I still try my best to stay grounded and humble without taking up any of the honours on my head. 

Every time I begin my lecture at a B-School as Visiting Faculty teaching Retail Elective to 2nd year students spanning 20-30 hours for the last 16 years, I still feel it is my very first day in Retailing, my tone and throat trembling for the first few minutes in to the class. Completing 20 years in a single Industry feels like an achievement. 

But for me, as I always say – I have just begun and I have Miles to Go before I sleep. Miles2Go. And needless to say, I am a self-proclaimed “Retailer by Profession and Choice. Since 1997”. For a reason!